CHSU Welcomes Over 150 New Medical Students into the Osteopathic Medical Community

Over 150 new medical students in the class of 2028 received their white coats at the California Health Sciences University College of Osteopathic (CHSU-COM) Medicine White Coat Ceremony in Clovis Sept. 28.

At the ceremony, John Graneto, DO, dean of the CHSU College of Osteopathic Medicine, shared the history of the white coat and the importance of maintaining professionalism and humanism in health care careers.

“Over the next 4 years we provide you the scientific and clinical tools to ultimately become doctors. And just as importantly, this white coat symbolizes many other essential parts of your medical education, a standard of professionalism, caring and humanism; and its emblem of the trust you must earn from and display to patients and their families,” remarked John Graneto, DO, Dean of the CHSU College of Osteopathic Medicine.

An inspiring welcome address was provided by Donna Cashdan, DO, Immediate Past President of the Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons of California. Dr. Cashdan spoke about how the white coat is a reminder of the responsibility these students now have as future physicians and a symbol of the trust placed in physicians by their future patients.

The white coats were generously sponsored by the Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons of California, an organization focused on advancing and supporting osteopathic physicians in California by serving its mission to engage, educate, and advocate for DOs, so doctors can focus on being doctors. Founded in 1961, the association serves over 9,000 current and future doctors of osteopathic medicine throughout California.

Dr. Cashdan and CHSU College of Osteopathic Medicine alum from the inaugural class of 2024, Vasha Swamy, DO, coated the first and second students in the ceremony, respectively.

 See CHSU press release

Contact: Richele Kleiser, (559) 312-3892, rkleiser@chsu.edu

Math Bridge and Master’s Upskilling

heading north via WE Will! K-16 funding

‘Together, we are creating pathways for success

that will benefit our communities for generations to come.’

BY TOM URIBES
CVHEC Communications/Media Coordinator

[NOTE: see updates below]

Two $400,000 state grants in partnership with the WE Will! K-16 Workforce and Education Collaborative will expand Central Valley Higher Education Consortium initiatives into the North Valley: the Master’s Upskilling Project and the Central Valley Math Bridge program.

Funding for both consortium projects, which involve improving access to dual enrollment college courses for high school students, is from a $18 million grant the WE Will! Collaborative received from the Regional K-16 Education Collaboratives Grant Programs last fall as part of the statewide drive to strengthen the K-16 education-to-career pipeline.

McKenna Salazar — WE Will!

The North Valley Tri-County Workforce and Education (WE Will!) K-16 Collaborative is a multi-sector and intersegmental collaboration uniting Merced, San Joaquin and Stanislaus Counties with CVHEC-member University of California, Merced as the lead agency and includes four other fellow CVHEC members: Merced College, Modesto Junior College, San Joaquin Delta College and California State University, Stanislaus. The collaborative also includes K-12 school districts, county offices of education, economic development agencies and local and regional employers.

“CVHEC is excited to join the WE Will! K-16 Collaborative as an initiative partner,” said Dr. Benjamín Durán, consortium executive director, when he learned of the CVHEC funding decision in April that will extend its programs already underway in other parts of the valley into the northern region.

CVHEC’s two programs already in place are through the Fresno-Madera K-16 Collaborative in the mid-valley region and the Kern K-16 Collaborative in the south valley area.

“Our south and mid-valley efforts have laid a solid foundation for the programs to succeed when scaled and replicated throughout our region to better serve all Central Valley students,” added the president-emeritus of Merced College who after his retirement in 2012 joined CVHEC in 2016.

Dr. Benjamín Durán,  CVHEC  

The dual enrollment aspect supports CVHEC’s mission to increase college degree and certificate attainment rates for valley students throughout the nine-county Central Valley region as well as helps fulfill the collaborative’s education-to-career pipeline goal.

McKenna Salazar, executive director of the Office of K-20 Regional Alliances and WE Will! K-16 Educational Collaborative, said the North Valley Collaborative sought partners whose initiatives would equitably enhance K-16 career pathways in healthcare and education.

“We are thrilled to partner on these initiatives, which represent a critical step toward ensuring that students experience seamless transitions across the educational spectrum,” Salazar said.

“Our partnership with CVHEC is an exciting endeavor that will empower students to thrive in both their academic and professional pursuits. Together, we are creating pathways for success that will benefit our communities for generations to come.”

Upskilling high school teachers to teach dual enrollment

The first $400,000 grant that CVHEC was awarded will support the extension of the consortium’s Master’s Upskilling Project into the northern CVHEC member counties over the next three years, said Elaine Cash, CVHEC’s grants and programs coordinator who secured the consortium funding.

The program — a collaboration of two CVHEC-members: Fresno Pacific University and National University with CVHEC member community colleges and the service-area high schools — recruits and helps fund tuition for existing high school math and English teachers to earn a master’s so they can teach dual enrollment courses in those subjects on their high school campuses.

The innovative program that has already produced over 160 master’s graduates qualified to teach dual enrollment college courses was the result of CVHEC’s dual enrollment task force, Central Valley Dual Enrollment for Equity and Prosperity (CVDEEP), established in 2019 to identify and establish the best elements of an intentional and sustainable strategy for dual enrollment. CVDEEP is made up of more than 150 Central Valley secondary and postsecondary education leaders who gather annually for CVHEC dual enrollment convenings.

“An urgent need identified by CVDEEP is that many high schools, especially our rural schools, are unable to offer dual enrollment courses on their campuses because they lack teachers who meet the community college minimum qualifications – a master’s degree,” Cash said.

As in the other valley locations, FPU plans to offer the WE Will! regional high school teachers holding a bachelor’s degree in mathematics an online MA degree program in Mathematics Education. National will offer the WE Will! regional high school English teachers an online Master of Arts degree program in English.

“Over the coming three years, the funding will support 12 high school English and 12 high school math teachers to offset much of the cost of this upskilling coursework and provide them with community college mentors to support them in their role as college instructors,” Cash said.

CVHEC will work with Merced, San Joaquin and Stanislaus Counties Superintendent of Schools offices to recruit teachers seeking this opportunity as well as with regional community colleges to identify mentors.

(UPDATE Sept. 18, 2024) — Master’s Upskilling Project: recruitment campaign for 24 slots (12 English/12 Math) is now underway with MA classes to begin in January. CVHEC is working with WE Will! and county superintendent of schools officials to promote the program to county high school teachers.

Math Bridge — closing the equity achievement gap 

For the second $400,000 grant funding the Central Valley Math Bridge Project, WE Will! joins efforts by CVHEC with project-founding partner College Bridge to close the equity achievement gap of underrepresented students entering college.

“In the junior and senior years of high school, underrepresented students have the opportunity and support to successfully complete the critical gateway requirements in transfer-level college math while mapping their chosen pathways to and through the CV colleges and universities of their choice,” Cash explained.

The high school students are enrolled in dual enrollment college Math Bridge courses, she said. These transfer-level math courses include a College Transition Bridge (CT Bridge) curriculum that offers students a comprehensive college-readiness experience, including an introduction to Pathway Program Mapper in coordination with the CVHEC Transfer Project.

PPM is a public internet-based software application that presents students with pre-approved course sequences aligning the community college Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT) agreement with the upper division requirements by major for successful degree completion.

Several high schools in the WE Will! region have already added the CV Math Bridge course, Cash said, adding that CVHEC and College Bridge will focus the WE Will! Collaborative funding to:

1) expand the Pathway Program Mapper to include pathways for seamless ADT transfers from San Joaquin Delta, Modesto and Merced community colleges to UC Merced and CSU Stanislaus, and

2) expand the CV Math Bridge project, adding additional high schools in the Modesto Community College region.

“CVHEC is delighted to receive funding to support the expansion of the Central Valley Math Bridge program into the WE Will! collaborative region,” Cash said.  “We look forward to working with the North Valley collaborative to achieve regional goals that support our students’ college and career successes.”

The first phases for the two programs once the funding is in place is to begin collaborating with high schools for the Math Bridge program and working with county superintendent of schools offices to begin recruiting master’s candidates.

(UPDATE Sept. 18, 2024): Math Bridge officials are presently meeting with county school officials to plan implementation. Recruitment of students is tentatively set for next spring with the first cohort to begin instruction in the fall 2025. Additional updates to come.

See:

UC Merced-led Collaborative Awards $10.6 Million to Community  (May 9, 2024)

UC Merced-led Regional Education Collaborative Awarded $18.1 Million in State Funds (Nov. 22, 2023)

MEMBER NEWS: North Valley, East Sierra CVHEC members partner for K-16 Collaboratives (Nov. 16, 2022) 

The drive is on to place the program’s master’s grads

in Kern community college adjunct spots

The Kern Master’s Upskill Program continues to forge ahead as four cohorts of high school teachers are halfway to its goal of 100 new master’s degrees which qualifies the teachers for instruction of dual enrollment courses at Kern County high schools.

Formally known as the Dual Enrollment Teacher Upskilling Pathway for English and Mathematics, the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium initiative is in partnership with the Kern Regional K-16 Education Collaborative that was funded as part of an $18 million statewide competitive grant in June 2022 to improve student progress from high school to postsecondary education and ultimately into the workforce under the Kern County Superintendent of Schools (KCSOS), which serves as the administrative agent for the Kern K-16 Collaborative.

CVHEC first started the Teacher Upskilling component in Fresno County in 2021 with similar state funding through the Fresno/Madera K-16 Collaborative before teaming up with its Kern partners for $1.7 million to produce, over three years, up to 100 qualified dual enrollment teachers to teach English and Math.

This year, the CVHEC program is also expanding into the North Valley with two $400,000 state grants in partnership with the WE Will! K-16 Collaborative with 24 slots – 12 in English and 12 in math (see the We Will story in this issue).

CVHEC’s Teacher Upskilling program is in partnership with two consortium members:  Fresno Pacific University offers a Master’s degree in Mathematics education and National University offers a Master’s degree program in English.

In the past academic year, 48 students earned their English and math master’s degrees and now the program is in full gear for the next step, said Tom Burke, CVHEC’s Kern Masters Upskilling Program lead.

“Our faculty mentors and mentor coordinators are currently working with the graduates to get them into the adjunct hiring pools for Bakersfield College, Cerro Coso Community College, Porterville College and Taft College.  “This is the initial step toward teaching dual enrollment at Kern County high schools.”

He provided this breakdown of the current Kern progress since the program began in 2022:

English MA Summary:

• In three cohorts to date, 32 students have graduated.
• Also from those first 3 cohorts, nine master’s candidates have received in progress grades and are working to complete their capstone course towards meeting their full degree requirements.
• A fourth cohort in English is in development.

Math MA Summary:

• Sixteen (16) students from cohort 1 have graduated.
• Cohort 2 currently has 11 students on course to graduate in spring 2025.
• Cohort 3 commences this semester (fall 2024) with 22 master’s candidates and will complete in spring 2026.

The project also includes the CVHEC Mentor Program that pairs the master’s candidates with a community college mentor to support them along the way and help them navigate the process to becoming an adjunct community college faculty member.  In Kern, the mentor coordinators are Dr. Liz Rozell (math) and Dr. Vikash Lakhani (English).

Burke said the program is currently recruiting for math mentors while mentor recruitment for the new north valley We Will  initiative will begin lagter in the fall semester.

See:

• Fresno Pacific University Math MA Program
• National University English MA program
• Kern Master’s Upskilling Program: 2nd cohort graduates – next cohort recruitment underway

• CVHEC Teacher Upskilling Program for Master’s Degrees Supports Dual Enrollment in South Valley via Kern K-16 Collaborative Grant (June 23, 2022)
• Rozell, Lakhani Named CVHEC’s Kern Faculty Mentor Coordinators (February 22, 2023)
• CVHEC IN THE NEWS: KBAK features Kern Master’s Upskill Program (November 17, 2022)
• Tom Burke Named Kern Master’s Upskill Lead (November 16, 2022)
• Herrera to Head Kern Regional K-16 Education Collaborative (July 13, 2022)
• KCSOS Mary Barlow Announces $18.1M Workforce Grant (KCSOS press release – June 9, 2022)

• “Blurring the Lines Between High School and College: Dual Enrollment in the Central Valley”(CVHEC video – March 2022)

‘Our goals are to succeed, to learn and understand

and to rise up and make life better’

BY KEVIN NELSON

Professor of English – Merced College Los Banos Campus

I have been teaching English at the Merced College Los Baños Campus since 2013: reading, writing, critical thinking and literature. I’d like to talk a little about why this campus is a good place to learn.

I attended Cal State Long Beach and Cal Poly Humboldt, and I lived and taught all over the world before coming to the Central Valley. My life experiences have been vastly different from the majority of my students and many of my peers, but somehow, we find common ground and form a community — a group of people who know each other and have common goals.

It is this little community of 15 to 35 people in my classrooms (and the people who support them every day) that makes the Los Baños Campus a great place to work and maybe, more importantly, a really great place to attend college.

My little community is diverse in and out of the classroom.

This year, we celebrate our math teacher’s 30th year of service at Los Baños Campus, and at the same time we welcome a new English instructor who was once a Merced College student!

One of my classes (a typical mix) has 16- and 17-year-olds who got to college faster than most of us, as well as returning students in their 30s and 40s and beyond. I get students who want to start a career, discover a new adventure, find a new path or embark on a second, third or fourth act!

I have students who struggled in K-12, students who excelled, students who struggle to keep up and students who zip through the work.

I have confident, shy, introverted, extroverted, older, and younger students. I have students who co-parent, students who help support their families financially, students with their own kids in college and students who are just starting families.

If you look around my classroom, you can get a glimpse of the community around the college.

My students are different from each other, but the same. Our similarity is in our goals and values. We value education, learning, collegiality — the opportunity to grow and be a stronger, more capable, more informed person. Our goals are to succeed, to learn and understand and to rise up and make life better.

For my little community, the goal is significant — every one of my students wants to be better at something. They have life and work goals, and they recognize that this is where better begins.

For me, community isn’t just about finding like-minded people, it’s about action — doing. This is why I live here and do this. I hope you will join us.

California’s San Joaquin Valley (SJV) has the lowest college enrollment and completion rates in the state, which both reflects and perpetuates the region’s economic challenges. Yet it could be on the verge of dramatic improvements. How can institutions, educators, and policymakers expand support for its college-going pathways?

Last month, PPIC senior fellow and director of the Higher Education Center Olga Rodriguez presented new findings and led a discussion with valley higher education leaders Aug. 20 to answer this question including Dr. Benjamín Durán, executive director, of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium. They were joined by Tressa Overstreet, Fresno Unified School District’s executive director of college and career readiness, and Dr. Orquidea Largo—associate vice chancellor and chief outreach officer at UC Merced’s Center for Educational Partnership

“The single largest obstacle for SJV youth is the transition from high school to college,” Rodriguez said. “The second is the transfer from community college to four-year institutions.” She stressed that districts with the best outcomes have expanded access to dual enrollment courses and made the A–G coursework needed to qualify for California’s public four-year colleges an integral part of high school curricula. Even so, only 39% of valley high school graduates complete the requirement.

Most SJV high school graduates who go on to postsecondary education start out in community college, but their transfer rates are 5 percentage points lower than in the rest of the state. “Parents and students in the valley see a college education as a key to a brighter future,” Rodriguez said, “including greater career and economic opportunities. Ensuring they have access to the information they need is critical to their success.”

Tressa Overstreet, Fresno Unified School District’s executive director of college and career readiness, agreed. Citing the importance of introducing college and career readiness well before ninth grade, she said, “We need to spend time with our families and our youngest students, to develop the mindset that I am college material.” To facilitate student success, Fresno Unified made A–G its default high school curriculum, expanded access to dual-enrollment courses, prioritized data, and last year added transition counselors. “We have a full department focused on monitoring and meeting the needs of every student,” Overstreet said. “This year our students earned over 12,000 credits through dual enrollment.”

Asked what advice she had for students, Orquidea Largo—associate vice chancellor and chief outreach officer at UC Merced’s Center for Educational Partnerships—said that improved policies and procedures have rendered today’s students more aware and assertive than in the past. But more needs to be done to ensure they arrive at high school academically well prepared, with a sense of where they are going. “I want to remind them we are working for them. It is not an inconvenience to approach their teachers, their counselors, their principals and declare what path they want to follow and how they expect our educational system to support them in pursuing their college aspirations.”

Benjamin Duran, executive director of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium, addressed the challenge of improving transfer rates. As an example, he talked about the Central Valley Transfer Project—a collaborative effort between his organization, valley community college and California State University (CSU) campuses, and UC Merced. Among other improvements, an associate degree can now qualify students for the region’s public four-year colleges. Duran is especially excited about the Pathways Mapper application. “We think it’s going to have a huge impact on the transfer numbers we already see,” he said. “Youngsters involved are transferring at greater numbers than those seeking their own pathways.”

All the panelists pointed to data sharing as an essential aspect of such collaboration. Largo emphasized the importance of real-time district-level data in making adjustments to policies and practices that might be creating barriers for students. Overstreet agreed, noting that data is essential not only to building Fresno Unified’s master schedule but also to monitoring student progress in such a way that interventions can be made. She emphasized the need to break out of silos of all kinds: “We truly believe we are stronger together. This is going to take a community lift, to shift our regional socioeconomic status. Our students deserve pathways to hope.”

SeeL

NEWS RELEASE: Durán joins Aug. 20 panel examining new PPIC findings